Tips To Avoid Bringing Ants Home From Your Picnic

It is picnic season again, and there are many ways we find to add a picnic to our outdoor activities. When we go camping, we make a fire and have hotdogs, smores, and marshmallows. When we go to the beach, we cook cheeseburgers on the charcoal grill and bring some chips, potato salad, and other goodies to go with them. When we visit our friends, we often find ourselves firing up the gas grill and eating outside. However you intend to do your picnicking this year, we hope you'll take this short list of ant prevention with you. It will help you get the most out of your picnic activities and help you prevent those ants from coming home with you.

Get elevated. If you're looking to have a classic picnic with some type of spread on the ground, then this tip isn't for you. But, if your plan is just to add a cookout to your outdoor activities, it is best to eat your food elevated. That will make it harder for ants to zero in on open beverages, and food sitting on plates.

Ants are great climbers. Eating at a picnic table is not likely to be enough to keep these pests from driving you crazy. For added protection, you can bring some tin pie plates with you and put them under the legs of your picnic table, fill those plates with water, and create a barrier that will keep ants from climbing up.

Ants are attracted to trash. Keep your trash elevated or in a sealed container, to avoid attracting ants to your location. Or, if you prefer, keep the trash away from where you are having your picnic.

If you have set up water traps under the legs of your picnic table, you should be free to lay food out without fear of ant invasion but be aware that open food can attract flying pests as well. If you're having your picnic on a blanket, it is a good idea to keep food in sealed containers when you are not preparing a plate of food to eat.

If you are not elevated, it is a good idea to keep all sweet beverages in sealed containers.

Whether your food and drinks are elevated or not, ants can still crawl on your legs and ruin your fun. Be aware that mosquito repellent sprayed on your legs can help to prevent unwanted ants, especially fire ants. A repellent with oil of lemon eucalyptus is a nice, natural option.

Before you return home, check your bag to make sure you don't have any stowaways.

We hope these tips help you have better picnics this season. If you ever have trouble with ants at home, remember that Rottler Pest & Lawn Solutions offers industry-leading pest control services for Missouri homes and businesses. When pests appear, contact us for immediate assistance.